Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman provided more updates on the potential sale of the Penguins by Fenway Sports Group in a 32 Thoughts podcast episode recorded during the NHL/NHLPA European Player Media Tour in August.
Friedman initially reported that the Hoffmann family, who are based in Florida and currently own the ECHL’s Florida Everblades, had “emerged as a serious contender” to buy the Penguins.
He added more news about the potential sale around the 33-minute mark of the Aug. 22 episode of his podcast
with Kyle Bukauskas.
Friedman said at the time he had believed the Penguins would get sold the previous week— that is, between Aug. 18 and Aug. 22— at a valuation of 1.75 billion.
“It’s real, no matter what anyone says. This is real, and we’ll see if it gets closed in the near future… they’re very serious about it,” Friedman said.
Friedman continued: “You know, I had some people ask me about Kyle Dubas. I don’t think this will affect Dubas at all. I think he’s going to stay on in his current roles, from what I’m hearing. Someone asked, ‘Do you think it’ll change the direction of the team?’ And there’s nothing I’ve heard in the days since this first came out that convinces me that their plan is changing.”
Friedman went on to share an interesting take on the potential sale. He said some unidentified sources had told him FSG’s reported consideration of selling the franchise just under four years after making the purchase should lead to a reevaluation of Ron Hextall’s tenure as general manager.
Hextall took control of the team between 2021 and 2023. A year after he was dismissed, almost no players he had brought into the organization remained on the Penguins roster. But Friedman said some people believed Fenway had hurt Hextall’s chances of success by hesitating to pull the trigger on a rebuild:
“You know, I got a couple of interesting calls in defense of Ron Hextall. I had a couple people reach out and say that, if Fenway Sports does sell the team, that there should be a bigger conversation into how Hextall’s GM term went. I had people who really defended him, saying that when Hextall was hired, it was before Fenway bought the team.
“Hextall was hired under the idea of, the team was going to get rebuilt. And then, when push came to shove… the plan changed. And they just felt that it should be known that what he was hired to do and what he got instructed to do when the moment came were two very different things.”
Now that rebuild is fully underway under Dubas, and Friedman indicated that won’t change regardless of who owns the team during the 2025-26 season.
The Penguins were reportedly valued at $900 million when FSG purchased a controlling stake in November 2021, Pierre LeBrun reported for The Athletic. Being able to nearly double that valuation in just four years could be a motivating factor in FSG potentially considering a sale.
